SUPPLY CHAIN ARTICLES

  • Picasso, Pick-Up Lines, & Personalized Medicine: mRNA's Path Forward

    Overall, my presentation on what the mRNA industry can learn from the artist Picasso singled out a few specific areas from which I felt our industry could garner greater inspiration and operational prowess. But given how “collaborative” many of these sources of inspiration are, I’ve introduced each of my takeaways with a surprisingly relevant (albeit bad) art-themed pick-up line. After all, if there’s one sector that knows it takes more than one to “tango,” it’s the mRNA industry.

  • The Expanding Patent Landscape For RNA-Based Therapeutics

    The COVID-19 pandemic thrust RNA-based therapeutics into the spotlight. Before that, only a handful had received regulatory approval. Why are RNA-based therapeutics seeing more patent activity now and how should biotech companies mitigate patent risks? Attorneys from Neal Gerber Eisenberg share their insights.

  • A "Hot Take" on Personalized mRNA Medicines

    mRNA’s small-scale and cell-free production are often-touted benefits in the personalized medicines sphere. But as I reviewed my notes from the BioPhorum ATMP member event, I found myself coming face to face with a difficult truth.

  • Inside Alnylam's Playbook For High Volume siRNA Production

    As one of the first companies to establish a chemoenzymatic ligation platform, Alnylam's Maines and Nechev are in the perfect position to espouse wisdom on the practical aspects and remaining challenges of implementing enzymatic ligation at a large scale. Here in this installment, Maines and Nechev outline what they’ve learned thus far about the science of enzymatic ligation, while also paying credence to the unknowns and existing barriers that, as a frontrunner, Alnylam will inevitably (but willingly) be tasked with facing in the future.

  • Multidisciplinary mRNA: What Can We Learn From Other CGTs?

    Overall, there are four high-level best practices/mindsets I proposed during a recent presentation that I believe will be crucial for us to bring some talented RNA therapeutic role models to the forefront. But there is one best practice that I think is worth emphasizing more than the others.

  • Moderna & The Global mRNA Supply Chain: Regulatory Lessons Learned

    One of the most important reminders I took away from Moderna’s experiences ushering its mRNA vaccine onto the global market is that a commercial manufacturing process must also be accompanied by a commercially ready supply chain. Though sufficient physical volumes of each raw material and a redundant supplier network are necessities, physical scale is not the only “CQA” for which we must account when commercializing our supply chain. 

SUPPLY CHAIN VIDEOS

In response to an audience poll question gauging which cGMP materials have proven the most difficult to source, our speakers provide additional clarity around which IVT & LNP-related materials today are more “commoditized”.

In this Advancing RNA Live clip, Sail Biomedicines’ Marc Wolfgang gives us a brief primer on the main differences and challenges in developing an IVT reaction for circular RNA, as opposed to linear mRNA.    

Advancing RNA Live panelists Tyler Goodwin and April Sena start off our latest discussion on technology innovations in mRNA production by surveying the current manufacturing process for plasmid production, highlighting where they’ve seen advancements and what biotechs need to consider to obtain plasmids of the appropriate quality for mRNA production.

Three LNP experts share their thoughts on the incremental advancements they’d like to see the RNA-LNP space make in the next few years.

ARTICLES, APP NOTES, CASE STUDIES, & WHITE PAPERS